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Bulb Planting on the Motorway

Saturday 11th November

Click on the picture for larger image.

The first bulb planting session was a great success with tulips and daffies around the 40MPH sign on the south side. There were four of us, led by Mark and including Peter and his lovely granddaughter Lucy WHO IS FIVE (she proudly told me).

Thank you Lucy, you're a star.

The north side is being left for the moment in the hope that BT/Openreach will come back and sort out the absolute mess they've made of the verge. They have been approached. Further planting sessions will be announced through the Nobbut. If you can help we'll be delighted to see you there.

David.

More bulb planting

25th November

Another wonderful bulb planting session on the Torver Motorway with eight glorious, rain soaked, mud splattered volunteers this time to pop the daffy bulbs in - seven here and Mark behind the camera.

Great thanks to you all.

There was a small section left on this run when they ran out of bulbs, so Mark will do them later. No luck with getting Openreach to repair the other side yet but they are being pursued with vigour.

David.

Torver Street Names

There are only a few and the origins are not clear so I thought I'd start a debate about them.

Sattery Lane is my starting point following my mis-spelling of it in a recent announcement. I can find no dictionary reference to 'sattery' but my thanks to Sharon James who directed me to John Dawson's Torver where he describes it as meaning wet or swampy, which would fit with the location. Les Higgins also suggests that meaning. It may be an old local word and 'sattery' has a boggy feel to it. Researching Sattery as a name I did find that there are 348 historical documents but could trace none related to Torver. I read somewhere that there's a 'Sattery Bridge'. Anyone know where it is?

Car or Carr Lane. Like Sattery Lane, this suggests swampy land. A carr is a type of waterlogged wooded terrain, a stage between original reedy swamp and eventual formation of forest. The name derives from the Old Norse kjarr meaning a swamp.

The Hummers - the road up towards Broughton Mills from just south of Souterstead. I can find nothing on the Net, but Chris Bradley points out that 'hummer' is German origin:"The name is a merger of the Frisian for ‘heart’ ‘mind’ ‘spirit’ and ‘famous’." , so "possibly some local mining connection and the influx of expertise from Europe". The dictionary gives only 'one who hums' or a 'four wheel drive military vehicle', so no help there. Or is there some local meaning that's been lost over time?

Old Rake - the start of the above road off the A593 towards broughton Mills, about a third of a mile until it become The Hummers. 'Rake' suggests a steep incline (rake or slope of a ships mast etc.) which describes the steep start of Old Rake from the A593.

Crook Lane. A bend in a river? Torver Beck is close by. Or a generic naming taken from Crook Farm and adopted over time?

The Roundabout. No more than a local description of the back road past Hollace, High Style and Brackenbarrow, but sometimes referred to as Hollace Lane. There is no record I can find of a formal name.

Hollow West. This is a stretch of the A593 roughly from Brocklebank Ground south to about half a mile beyond Bank End farm. It is not marked anywhere on the ground but does appear on Google Maps and, I believe, in satnavs. I can see no obvious 'hollow' so another mystery.

Old Dalton Road. So named because it was once part of the cattle route to the Dalton markets, beasts from the southern end of the parish accessing it down what is now the driveway of Souterstead, then a public road or track. But before that, when the building on the site of the Church House housed monks from Furness Abbey, it was their walking route to the Abbey and called the Monk's Road.

Butcher Moss. OK, not so much a road as an access for the new houses, but it was named for the original field on which it stands.

Walna Scar View. The proposed name for the access lane for the new Goods Yard development but perhaps a pity, unlike Butcher Moss, that it doesn't reflect the history of the site. Perhaps 'The Old Goods Yard' is not the most attractive home address.

If anyone has any information or ideas on these road names I'll be pleased to get it.